The Hill: The hunt for the identify of the senior administration official who penned a scathing and anonymous op-ed in The New York Times picked up steam on Thursday, as dozens of high-ranking Trump officials issued statements denying they were behind it.
A day after President Trump called the op-ed describing efforts to impede some of his decisions an act of treason, conservatives in Congress said they were exploring the possibility of investigations, legislation or hearings to learn the author’s name. Lawmakers will be racing with the media, which itself is trying to discover which official close to Trump wrote the Times opinion piece titled “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.”
The White House did not respond Thursday to questions from The Hill about whether there is an active search to discover the identity of the author or whether administration officials were encouraged to issue denials, but Trump’s fury at learning of the op-ed coupled with the denials from officials strongly suggested an effort to discover the culprit was on the way.
The White House also went scorched-earth on the Times, as White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders shared the phone number for the news outlet’s opinion desk, and urged followers to call the newspaper with questions about the piece.
Trump, Vice President Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo each blasted the newspaper for running the op-ed at all.
Trump suggested the author doesn’t exist, and called on the newspaper to prove him wrong by turning the individual over to the government for “national security purposes.”
Pence called the decision to publish the op-ed a “new low in American journalism.”
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said the administration should seek out the author.
“I think that’s a real problem if that person stays in the job they currently are in,” he said.
And House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) didn’t rule out the possibility of a congressional probe.
“I’m sure we have a number of members that are looking at it right now,” Scalise, the No. 3 Republican in leadership, told The Hill.
Other Republicans soft-peddled the idea of a congressional witch hunt, which almost certainly would end up in the courts — at least if efforts were made to bring in Times employees to discover the news outlet’s sources.
Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said he did not see a role for Congress in finding the anonymous official.
Trump’s allies declined to speculate on the potential author, but echoed the president’s rhetoric in placing blame on the individual.
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